All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Observer Music Monthly

Crucially, Sam's Town sounds like a complete collection, with a far better strike rate than its predecessor.

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Blender

It is very good.

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Mojo

An action-packed blockbuster. [Oct 2006, p.104]

The Guardian

The album doesn't lend Flowers the gravitas he apparently yearns for, but it does prove that few are better at irrepressible pop hooks and fist-pumping choruses.

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Billboard

"Sam's Town" is a sophisticated sonic metropolis.

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New Musical Express

The Killers are still as flashy, unintentionally funny, and flagrantly affected as ever.

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All Music Guide

But even if the music doesn't really work, it's hard not to listen to it in slack-jawed wonderment, since there's never been a record quite like it -- it's nothing but wrong-headed dreams, it's all pomp but no glamour, it's clichés sung as if they were myths.

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Q Magazine

A much better record than its predecessor. [Oct 2006, p.112]

Dot Music

An album considerably richer than "Hot Fuss" and far more worthy of mainstream hugeness.

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Delusions of Adequacy

With those sharp synth lines, and an interesting sense of melody, the Killers have made a good album.

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NOW Magazine

Sam's Town works well as a cohesive album, despite its delusions of grandeur.

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Hartford Courant

The highs aren't as high on "Sam's Town," but it's a better album overall.

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Drowned In Sound

Taken as a body of work it is certainly more consistent than Hot Fuss.

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Austin Chronicle

The Killers overextend themselves grabbing for the heartland's heartstrings.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

Those who don't enter Sam's Town with inflated expectations will find it's a pretty fun place to spend some time.

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Filter

Flowers would do better to leave the theatrics back at Caesar's Palace. [#22, p.96]

Uncut

The problem... is that size seems to be used as an excuse for the lack of musical ideas. [Nov 2006, p.102]

Uncut

The problem... is that size seems to be used as an excuse for the lack of musical ideas. [Nov 2006, p.102]

Playlouder

The Killers album is, whisper it, pretty good in places.

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Prefix Magazine

Loose, sloppy playing and power hooks.

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Slant Magazine

The Killers may have grown a heart for Sam's Town, but they also grew even bigger egos, and it's unlikely that the album's bombast and self-importance will convert any new fans.

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Spin

Sam's Town is basically Hot Fuss with bigger, spanglier guitars and an all-round lack of restraint. [Oct 2006, p.93]

Pitchfork

Not fully realizing where their strengths and weaknesses lie makes Sam's Town, despite the drastic makeover, roughly equivalent to Hot Fuss, a mediocre album surrounding a few towering singles.

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Stylus Magazine

Whatever Sam’s Town’s scant merits, the album reminds artists to be more careful about their role models—and to avoid Bono’s phone calls.

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E! Online

[It] offers only occasional flashbacks to the seedy glamour of the debut, instead settling on lightweight MOR clichés.

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ShakingThrough.net

Ultimately, they don't come across as unbearably pretentious so much as just really, really misguided.

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Urb

Sam's Town is bloated with verses that helplessly swipe at capturing something, anything, significantly American. [Oct 2006, p.129]

Entertainment Weekly

With Sam's Town, they've removed the glopped-on Goth eyeliner, sprouted scruffy outlaw beards, and traded in urbane decadence for windswept super-romanticism. Bye-bye, Duran Duran; hello, Simple Minds.

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musicOMH.com

With too much empty bluster and not enough decent songs, Sam's Town can only be regarded as a step back for The Killers.

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Rolling Stone

On Sam's Town they seem like they're trying to make a big statement, except they have nothing to say.

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Alternative Press

A cluttered, derivative mess. [Dec 2006, p.200]

The New York Times

Of course it is good to be ambitious. Of course the Killers needed to update their sound, given that the 80’s revival is fading away. But their new bombast is a classic case of a young band overreaching to assert its Significance.

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PopMatters

Sam’s Town is so riddled with hackneyed clichés, pandering melodrama, and lazy songwriting, that we keep wondering just what gimmick Flowers will thrust upon us next in a desperate effort to hold our attention.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 196 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Cami J gave it a10:
This CD is rock heaven; I love everything about it. I think it's impossible to find any genuine flaws in both the songs and the band, and it's for that reason that I will support them to the end.

Suleiman M. gave it a9:
The best album from the The Killers as of late. (My two cents.) Sam's Town has it's fair share of slow songs, as well as the up beat style that The killers are known for. While it's most certainly different than Hot Fuss, and more or less strays from the formula they are known for, it still manages to be an incredible album. Most certainly recommended.

djc djc gave it a9:
I can understand why people may be annoued at the ever present bruce springsteen influence on almost every track. But overall this album is undeniably good. The critics who loved hot fuss mawled this but that shouldn't stop you if you like the killers than i don't see what you shouldn't like about this.

Scott W gave it a9:
Under-rated? Yes! Best album since Ok Computer? No! By today's standers is it better? Well who cares its just A Killer's Album, and a very good one I might add. Its still them for the fans of the first but they moved on to newer things at the same time, so it would not be to dull. It has Color, its jumpy, soulful, sad, happy and full of good pop rock right to the end.

Bernie G. gave it a10:
Give it a few years. Sam's Town will be considered one of the greatest albums of all time. It gets better with each listen.

Paul B gave it a1:
Awful, was expecting a better album than the last one which was only half good but amazingly this is rubbish all the way through.

Seb H gave it a6:
I can understand where both parties are coming from - the tunes on this album are pretty damn amazing and it's a fun listen, but I don't think it's worthy of a perfect rating either. Lyrically, this is a complete disaster, and its overall concept just doesn't work (making it a similar kind of disaster as U2's Pop in that it sounds good but has an unrealised concept). Then there's the fact that it just doesn't sound like the Killers - they take themselves too seriously here and it just doesn't work. I think a lot of people would have been happier if they had stuck to being a Vegas sleazebag new romantic/dance-pop band rather than this uber-earnest group aiming higher than they can punch

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Sam's Town

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